Smith: Price is too high not to comply with prison rape act

A prisoner is shown in the Plainfield Correctional Facility in Plainfield on Friday, March 15, 2013. Indiana is considering a sweeping overhaul in the criminal code and sentencing guidelines, particularly for non-violent offenders. About 1650 prisoners are serving time at the 67-acre all-male prison on Moon Road on the west side of Plainfield. Charlie Nye / The Star.(Photo:
Star file
)

There's something particularly bothersome about his letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder about why our state did not meet the standards by the May 15 deadline.

"Many additional staff would need to be hired, additional equipment installed, and resources put in place," Pence explained. Complying — or even attempting to do so — would "require the redirection of millions of tax dollars currently supporting other critical needs for Indiana," he continued.

This is despite Pence knowing that the federal standards were in the works for years. And despite the tax cuts he has pushed through in that time.

It's as if our governor is saying: Those people aren't worth the extra money and effort it would take to protect them from sexual abuse. It's a scary, arrogant attitude that values money over people, and devalues people in general.

Sadly, Pence is not alone in his thinking.

The governors of Idaho, Texas, Utah and Arizona have all told the Justice Department their versions of the same excuse for why their states won't comply with the law.

The governors of other states — among them, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Colorado and Mississippi — said they haven't met the federal standards yet but are working to do so.

That certainly more than what we're doing.

Pence says the Prison Rape Elimination Act isn't feasible to implement. That it would cost $15 million to $20 million a year, and so instead, the state's Department of Corrections has implemented its own, obviously less robust, rape prevention measures.

That's not good enough.

We already have an ex-offender problem, particularly in Marion County. We already have thousands of people who are leaving the prison system to live in our neighborhoods, and are quickly discovering that they can't get a job and can't get back on their feet.

We have people who are leaving prison in a worse mental state than when they went in because they've become victims of sexual abuse. Nationally, the ACLU says that some 2 million people have been raped or sexually abused behind bars since 2003.

Isn't it in our best interest to change that?

Then there's the message this sends about our state. Particularly to residents.

Here in Indianapolis, we are waging a war for the hearts and minds of young people in the urban core. We are trying to convince teenagers and young adults that they should care about other people. That hurting and killing people is wrong. That despite what they see in their poor, cutthroat neighborhoods, life isn't all about the survival of the fittest. That life isn't about getting money by any means necessary. That money isn't worth more than a human being.

This is what we, the compassionate members of our community, are telling them.

Then there's Pence telling them, telling the world, that if these kids commit a crime and go to prison, it's too expensive to try to protect them from rape.

That kind of frugality should never be a Hoosier value. The price is too high.